Night of the Wendigo

by William Meikle

  “Happens to me all the time,” Jon said deadpan.

  Suddenly they were both laughing. If there was a hint of hysteria in it, they both pretended not to notice.

  The mock euphoria carried them out of the storeroom and back into the corridor, but Jackie soon had to stop; she was in danger of blacking out.

  She stood on her good leg until the red pain subsided.

  She looked into a long room, with large stainless steel compartments down one side.

  Dave Jeffers is in there somewhere.

  She let go of the trolley and hopped to the morgue door, having to grab onto the jamb for balance.

  “Hey,” Jon said. “I thought we were headed back to the lab.”

  “There’s somebody I have to see first.”

  She left the doorway and lurched unsteadily into the morgue.

  * * *

  Mina caught up with Cole in the corridor leading to the delivery bay. He stood, a couple of yards from the door, staring at it fixedly.

  “We’re secure,” Mina said. “That ice must be feet thick by now.”

  “That’s the problem,” Cole said. “Look closer.”

  As Mina got nearer she saw what the man meant. The ice wasn’t confined to the other side of the door any more. It was creeping inside the corridor, tendrils reaching away from the door.

  “It’s happened before,” Cole whispered. Mina noticed he had the old journal in his hands. “Listen,” he said. He read.

  The wood, and young Isaac, were by now covered in a good half-inch of silver-grey ice, glistening red in the reflected firelight. The extent of it spread as we watched, crawling along the walls as if laid down by some invisible painter, creeping across the floor towards our feet, tendrils reaching out, looking for prey.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Cole whimpered. “Either that or get the temperature up somehow. If we don’t, we’re going to end up just like them.”

  He pointed to the window in the delivery bay door. Grey shapes were just visible, locked frozen in place.

  “Hold fast, man,” Mina said. “Mike will be back soon.”

  Cole laughed, but there was little humor in it.

  “Good for you if you can carry on believing that,” the man said. “But forgive me if I don’t share your certainty. I’d rather take my chances outside than wait here for the ice to get me.”

  “That can be arranged,” Mina muttered through the last remains of the cheroot.

  Cole fell sullenly quiet, but in truth Mina knew how he felt.

  We’re stuck, like rats in a trap. Wherever you are Moose, you’d better hurry up.

  * * *

  Mike’s hand fell on the signal flare, just as the lead wolf sat back on its haunches and leapt straight at him. He only had time to pop the safety catch and stab forward, using the flare like a knife.

  It exploded in the wolf’s left eye.

  Mike let go fast. He turned away, momentarily blinded by the sudden flash. He threw himself backwards. Snow fell in his eyes and stung on his cheeks. Adrenaline kicked in. He pushed himself to his feet, ready for any attack.

  The injured wolf writhed in the snow, silently thrashing in its death throes, the flare still a brilliant, sparking orb in its eye. The flanking members of the pack stared at it with white eyes gleaming orange-yellow, moving in closer as the flare finally sputtered and died. As Mike took his chance and turned away he heard the crunch of canines on icy flesh.

  The depot was straight ahead of him, the entrance to the underground car-park showing like a black hole, a cave that would shelter him from the storm.

  He pushed through the snow as fast as he could.

  Reaching into his jacket he took out his service pistol. It felt puny in his hand. It was no match for even one wolf if they decided to come for him, but it felt reassuring anyway, reminding him of warmer days and situations that could be dealt with using soft words and mild threats.

  I’ll never complain about donkey work again.

  He had almost reached the garage entrance. There were no lights on down there. The driveway sloped away into blackness. He took his flashlight in his left hand and headed down.

  The snow was even thinner here, but the ground underfoot was icy and treacherous. Progress was slow; especially as he took time to look back every few seconds to make sure the wolves were still occupied.

  Within a couple of yards he’d descended below the level of the lip of the drive. He could no longer see the wolves. All he could see was the silvery sky, shimmering, a sea of stars.

  A small avalanche of snow fell softly down from the entrance. He followed its progress with the flashlight as it tumbled silently towards him, not quite reaching his feet.

  When Mike looked back up to the entrance two wolves stood there, silhouetted against the stars. They raised their snouts in the air and howled, the unearthly wail echoing and reverberating like a feedback howl in the enclosed concrete tunnel.

  Mike turned and broke into a shuffling run; barely more than a walk, but even that was too fast in the slippery conditions. He fell over onto his back. A second later he slid, ever faster.

  He tobogganed down the slope, aware that, at any second, he could hurtle full on into a wall. His left hand smacked hard on stone.

  The flashlight flew out of his grip.

  Mike slid on down the slope, down into darkness.

  * * *

  There was a body lying on a gurney under a yellow sheet in the centre of the morgue.

  Jackie hopped over to the body, overbalancing just as she reached the table. She almost fell on top of it. The gurney shook, two wheels off the ground, but thankfully didn’t topple. The sheet slid, several inches, but the body stayed covered.

  “Is this…”

  She had to have a second attempt to say it. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “Is this one of the bodies from the dig?”

  Jon walked over to her side. He nodded.

  “But you shouldn’t do this to yourself.”

  “I need to see,” Jackie whispered.

  “No. You don’t. Trust me. I see it every day. Remember them as they were. Your friends are not here. Besides, it’s getting colder. Can’t you feel it?”

  She started to say “No,” but realized that her breath showed as steam.

  “Help me,” she said. “I need to see Dave Jeffers.”

  Jon sighed theatrically.

  “Lord, save me from bossy women.”

  He walked over to one of the compartments and rapped his knuckles on it. The sound was loud in the deep quiet of the room. “He’s in here. And he’s not pretty. You’ll need to hold your breath.”

  “You’re just trying to scare me off,” Jackie said, limping over to him.

  “Yep. Is it working yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Please?” she said. “It’s something I need to do.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The technician opened the compartment door and slid the drawer out. The body was covered by a sheet…white this time. It didn’t disguise the smell.

  Jackie’s first reaction was to step back as the odor stung in her nostrils. She tried breathing through her mouth, but that wasn’t any better.

  The last time I smelled something like that was when George Davros burnt Mrs. Louie’s cat in third grade.

  She steeled herself and stepped closer as Jon lifted the sheet.

  It was only the pain in her leg that kept her from fainting.

  Jon had been right. Wherever Dave Jeffers was now, it was nowhere near this putrid, frostbitten shell.

  “Seen enough?” Jon asked.

  Jackie nodded, too stunned to speak. She couldn’t take her eyes from the blackened ruin of a face. Thankfully someone had closed the eyes, but she doubted they were still brown.

  Jon let go of the sheet…but it never had time to fall back on the body.

  A thin film of frost ran across the length of the gurney.

  A black
arm rose up, faster than a blink. It grabbed Jon by the back of the neck.

  The noise of the technician’s spine snapping was the loudest thing that Jackie had ever heard, but her eyes never left the ravaged face.

  The eyelids rippled, as if a small animal moved just under the surface. When the eyes finally popped open they were unnaturally white against the dead black skin.

  Frostbitten lips rose in a smile as the creature dropped Jon’s dead body and stepped down off the gurney.

  * * *

  Back in the lab, Cole Barter was seated at the laptop trying to access the video-cam in the delivery bay area.

  “Nothing,” he said. “There’s no signal coming back from the camera. It’s just too damned cold.”

  “Any of the rest of them working?” Mina asked.

  Doug shook his head.

  “We’re running blind. And the comm links to the outside world are dead as well.”

  “Not quite all of them,” Mina said. She showed him the cell phone. “But this one’s for emergencies only…in case the Moose calls in.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she heard the man mutter.

  She left him at the computer while she went into her office. She had a spare pack of cheroots in the desk drawer.

  She lit up under the large No Smoking sign. She sucked hot smoke for several minutes.

  Normally she would have relished the quiet, but tonight there was a tension in the air that refused to dissipate; the threat of violence yet to come. She wasn’t at all surprised when Jackie’s high screams echoed through the building. Doug Barter was only just getting out of his chair as Mina ran past him, heading for the morgue.

  * * *

  Mike Kaminski finally came to a halt when the slope leveled out to join the level concrete of the floor of the parking lot.

  He got gingerly to his feet, checking for broken bones. He seemed to be fine except for some bruising to his left wrist.

  Looking back up to the entrance he could only see a faint gleam of the starlit sky. There was no sign of his flashlight. It had been lost somewhere on the way down.

  “And it can stay lost,” he muttered. “I’m certainly not going back to look for it.”

  It wasn’t quite dark down here on the parking level. An emergency generator had kicked in somewhere. Red spots overhead lit the whole area in dim, pink hues.

  Maybe there are other people down here? Hiding out?

  The only way he’d find out was to do some exploring; he knew better than to call out. Somewhere, not far above, the wolves were still around. He couldn’t count on them staying outdoors for long.

  Once more the picture of the snowplough was big in his head.

  If the works department had been caught as unawares as the rest of the city, there was a good chance that the vehicles hadn’t left the depot.

  He walked into the parking area, and almost shouted in glee; he was right.

  A long line of vehicles stretched off into the distance. The ones closest to him were large 4x4s with bull-bars and tow chains, but in the shadows he could already see some larger, bulkier trucks. He broke into a run.

  “Hold on, Mina,” he whispered. “I’ll be with you soon.”

  * * *

  Jackie’s scream had come without her thinking about it, but as soon as it came, it had gone again.

  She was rooted to the spot for several seconds, horrified by the shambling thing that reached for her as it got off the gurney.

  Black, re-frozen flesh cracked and split as it moved, sloughing off to be crushed into grey slush underfoot.

  Jackie hopped awkwardly backwards towards the door.

  “Dave?” she whispered. “It’s me…Jackie?”

  She may as well have been talking to a wall. The thing stared blindly at her, mouth hanging open, grey tongue just visible between the black lips. It moved as if stiff and sore after a long bout of exercise, but it was already starting to look more fluid, more like a predator after its prey.

  And I’m the mouse.

  Jackie realized she couldn’t move fast enough. She put all her weight on her bad leg and forced herself into a backwards shuffle, but even then she couldn’t manage more than a slow walking pace.

  I’m going to die.

  “Duck,” a voice called out behind her.

  She didn’t need to be asked twice. She let her legs give way under her and fell to the floor.

  A flaming bottle arced over her head and hit the frozen creature full in the chest.

  It went up in a roaring sheet of flame…but didn’t stop coming for her.

  “Die, you bastard,” Jackie heard Mina shout.

  The shotgun went off close to Jackie’s left ear. The flaming head of the creature disappeared in a spray of grey slush and sparking fire. It fell forward, firstly to its knees, then straight over onto its chest, still burning even as Jackie dragged herself away and out of the door.

  She didn’t stop until she was outside in the corridor backed up against the wall opposite the doorway. Even then she couldn’t take her eyes off the flames, not until Mina shook her gently by the shoulder.

  “It’s over,” the oriental woman said.

  “Jon?”

  Mina shook her head. There were tears in her eyes.

  “He didn’t make it.”

  Jackie’s ear still rang from the blast of the explosion. Mina’s voice sounded muffled. But she didn’t need to hear…she only had to look.

  The technician’s body lay just beyond the still burning creature. Dead eyes stared straight at Jackie.

  It was your fault. All your fault.

  She closed her eyes and slumped against the wall. She heard Mina speak to Barter, but couldn’t get her brain to make sense of what was being said.

  “I doubt if any of the headless ones will be coming back,” Mina said.

  “After what we’ve seen tonight, I wouldn’t be sure of anything,” Barter replied.

  “You’re right,” Mina said. “Stay with Jackie. I’ll torch them.”

  “Best do your friend while you’re at it,” Barter said. “Just to be safe.”

  “Just to be safe,” Mina whispered. There was a hitch in her voice.

  Somewhere deep down Jackie knew that the other woman was hurting, but she couldn’t do anything about that.

  Not yet.

  She kept her eyes closed. She squeezed them even tighter shut when she heard compartment doors being opened.

  “Best move her back,” Mina said. “I’m going to do the whole lot at once.”

  Jackie didn’t look, not when Barter dragged her along the corridor, nor when Mina called Fire in the hole.

  There was a flash, yellow against the back of her eyelids, then the terrible smell of burnt meat.

  * * *

  Mike prayed silently to himself as he walked down the line of vehicles, hoping for a snowplough, with keys inside, that wasn’t locked. He based his hopes on the belief that the depot workers here were anything like cops in his own squad; keys were regularly left dangling if you thought you’d be going out soon.

  Although there’s been no need for a plough in the past few months.

  He shoved that thought away. The wolves gave him more than enough worries for the moment. He kept checking behind him, but it was dim back there, the small red lights overhead almost useless.

  He almost cried with relief when he spotted the metal blade of the plough poking out just ahead of the line of vehicles.

  Come to Daddy.

  And there was more luck to come. The keys weren’t in the ignition…but they were stuck behind the overhead sun-guard. The fuel tank was full. The engine purred like a contented cat when he switched it on.

  He inched the truck out of the parking space and turned it onto the main alleyway.

  “I’m on my way, from misery to happiness again,” he sang in a very loud, very bad Scottish accent.

  His elation was short lived. When he flicked on the headlights they illuminated four pairs of white eyes
.

  The wolves sat on their haunches in the middle of the alleyway, directly between Mike and the exit.

  * * *

  Mina had one last look into the morgue. A small pile of bodies still burned in the centre of the room, but it didn’t look like the fire would spread.

  She’d put Jon at the bottom of the pile, so that she didn’t have to see him burn, but her mind kept giving her the picture anyway, even after she closed the door behind her.

  Jackie still lay slumped against the wall, eyes closed. The archaeologist looked twenty years older than she had earlier that night.

  I know how you feel, sister.

  “Get the trolley back to the lab,” she said to Cole Barter. “I’ll get Jackie.”

  The man didn’t move. His attention was focused in the corner of the room, where ice crept steadily across the ceiling.

  “We need to get somewhere warm,” he whispered. At the same time the lights flickered, almost failed. They came back, but the corridor wasn’t as brightly lit as before.

  Mina put the shotgun down on the trolley beside the rows of vials and bottles neatly arranged there.

  Jon did that. Tidy and efficient to the end.

  She almost sobbed. She fought it back.

  There will be time for that later.

  “We’ll regroup in the lab. It’s time to tell the Moose to hurry,” she said to Barter. She gave the man a push to get him moving before turning her attention to Jackie.

  “Break’s over, kid,” she said gently. “Time to shag it.”

  Jackie’s eyes opened. Mina had seen the expression before; shock, and more than a touch of fear.

  “It’s all my fault,” the archaeologist said.

  Mina nodded her head.

  “Okay. It’s all your fault. I agree with you. Now will you get off your butt and move?”

  Some life came back into Jackie’s eyes.